Terror Cell in Minnesota

“As described in the criminal complaint, these men worked over the course of the last 10 months to join ISIL,” said U.S. Attorney Luger. “Even when their co-conspirators were caught and charged, they continued to seek new and creative ways to leave Minnesota to fight for a terror group. I applaud the hard work and tireless efforts of the FBI Minneapolis Division and their colleagues around the country.” More detail from the FBI here.

Feds: Minnesota men spoke of terrorist attacks in US

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Some of the four Minnesota men facing trial next month for conspiring to join the Islamic State group had discussed the possibility of attacks in the United States, according to a document filed by prosecutors.

Guled Ali Omar. (credit: Hennepin County Jail) Minneapolis

Prosecutors said one defendant, Guled Ali Omar, talked about establishing a route from the U.S. to Syria through Mexico, then telling the Islamic State group about the route so it could be used to send fighters into America to carry out attacks.

The document, filed Wednesday, is one of many filed in recent weeks as prosecutors and defense attorneys argue about which evidence should be allowed at the men’s trial, which starts May 9.

   

The men – Omar, 21; Hamza Naj Ahmed, 21; Mohamed Abdihamid Farah, 22; and Abdirahman Yasin Daud, 22 – have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges, including conspiracy to commit murder outside the U.S. Prosecutors have said they were part of a group of friends in Minnesota’s Somali community who held secret meetings and plotted to join the Islamic State group.

Five other men have pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to support a foreign terrorist organization. A tenth man charged in the case is at-large, believed to be in Syria.

The government’s document was filed in response to a defense request that prosecutors be barred from introducing evidence about possible attacks in the U.S.

Last week, Daud’s attorney wrote that, absent any specific evidence that his client threatened the United States, any references to discussions about attacks would be prejudicial. To permit such references, as well as references to the Sept. 11 attacks or exhibits that show violent images of war crimes, “would cause the jurors to decide out of fear and contempt alone,” defense attorney Bruce Nestor wrote.

But prosecutors said audio recordings obtained during the investigation show the defendants spoke multiple times about the possibility of attacks in the U.S. Among them, Omar spoke of establishing a route for fighters, Farah spoke of killing an FBI agent and another man who pleaded guilty talked about shooting a homemade rocket at an airplane.

Prosecutors wrote that they should be allowed to “play for the jury the defendants’ own words, in which they discuss the possibility of returning to attack the United States.” They also said the defendants watched videos and gruesome images, which they also want to play for the jury, and that a blanket ban on mentioning the 2001 attacks is inappropriate, noting that Omar had pictures of the burning World Trade Center towers and Osama bin Laden on his cellphone.

A phone message left with Omar’s attorney wasn’t immediately returned.

The FBI has said about a dozen people have left Minnesota to join militant groups fighting in Syria in recent years. In addition, since 2007 more than 22 men have joined al-Shabab in Somalia.

Terrifying Truth on Who Obama is NOT Deporting

Goodlatte Urges DHS to Deport Thousands of Criminal Aliens with Federal Drug Convictions Set to Be Released Next Month

HouseJudiciaryCommittee: On April 30, 2014, the United States Sentencing Commission approved Amendment 782, which modified the United States Sentencing Guidelines to lower the base offense level for federal controlled substances offenses.  Amendment 782 was made retroactive by the Commission. As a consequence, approximately 2,000 convicted criminal aliens whose sentences were reduced are now eligible for release from the Federal Bureau of Prisons on or about November 1, 2015.

In the letter to Secretary Johnson, Chairman Goodlatte urges Secretary Johnson to remove these criminal aliens from the United States, noting that they are the highest enforcement priority based on the Obama Administration’s own written policy for priority enforcement.

Below is the text of Chairman Goodlatte’s letter to Secretary Johnson.

 

October 20, 2015

The Honorable Jeh Johnson
Secretary
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, D.C. 20528

Dear Secretary Johnson:

On April 30, 2014, the United States Sentencing Commission approved Amendment 782, which modified the United States Sentencing Guidelines to lower the base offense level for federal controlled substances offenses.  Amendment 782 was made retroactive by the Commission. As a consequence, approximately 6,000 convicted criminals whose sentences were reduced by the sentencing court pursuant to Amendment 782 are now eligible for release from the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) on or about November 1, 2015, and approximately 8,500 additional prisoners will be eligible for early release by November 1, 2016.  Of the initial 6,000 inmates who will be released early, a significant number – approximately 2,000 – are criminal aliens.  These aliens are removable from the United States, either because they are unlawfully present or because of their criminal convictions.  In fact, based on their convictions for drug trafficking offenses, such aliens are the highest enforcement priority (Priority 1) for the Department of Homeland Security, based on your own written policy for priority enforcement, issued on November 20, 2014.

During your testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on July 14, 2015, Committee Members questioned you about the early release of aliens under Amendment 782.  In response, you stated, “I’m aware of this issue.  I’m aware of the adjustment to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.  I’m aware that a number of individuals will be released as a result.  I’m aware that a number of them are probably undocumented, and we’ve been working with DOJ to do the most effective thing for public safety in that regard.”Given your response, I fully expect that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will issue a detainer with the BOP for each alien expected to be released pursuant to Amendment 782, and that each alien will be taken into custody by ICE, as required by the Immigration and Nationality Act, for purposes of initiating removal proceedings or to execute the removal order of each alien who is already subject to a final order of removal from the United States.

Please confirm whether my expectation will be met and that the Department of Homeland Security is committed to ridding our streets of aliens peddling dangerous and illicit drugs to our children.  Additionally, please provide the following requested information:

    1. The specific number of aliens who will be released early by BOP pursuant to Amendment 782.
    2. Of those alien prisoners, how many have ICE detainers or requests for notification?
    3. Does ICE expect to issue detainers or requests for notification for every alien identified in (1) above prior to the prisoner’s release from BOP custody?
    4. Does ICE expect to take custody of every alien identified in (1) above for the purpose of initiating removal proceedings or to execute a final order of removal?  If not, why not?
    5. Please provide the number of aliens identified in (1) above who will not be taken into ICE custody upon release from BOP and provide an explanation for each alien as to why ICE will not take the alien into custody.

Please provide this information to me by October 30, 2015.  If your office has any questions, please contact Tracy Short, Counsel, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, at (202) 225-3926.

Sincerely,

Bob Goodlatte
Chairman

**** Summary from Breitbart:

An overwhelming percentage of criminal aliens the Obama administration knows are in the U.S. are not detained but are instead living in neighborhoods and communities across the country, according to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA).

Central American Gang Members AP

“The American public has been misled by the ‘enforcement priorities,’ ‘deferred action,’ and ‘executive action’ policies of this Administration, which categorize only certain quote, unquote ‘serious’ criminal aliens as worthy of immigration enforcement,” Goodlatte said at a House subcommittee hearing examining the victims of illegal immigrant crime. “However, this Administration’s actions demonstrate that it finds it acceptable to permit even serious criminal aliens to prey on our communities.”

According to the House Judiciary Committee, the Obama administration’s enforcement policies have allowed tens of thousands of criminal aliens to remain in the U.S.

“At least 95 percent of convicted criminal aliens known to [the Department of Homeland Security] are not detained,” Goodlatte said at Tuesday’s hearing.

The Virginia Republican argued against immigration activists’ contention that illegal immigration is a “victimless crime,” stressing that the opposite it true — “illegal immigration has consequences that can be devastating,” he said.

“Americans deserve to know why this Administration would release thousands upon thousands of criminal aliens from DHS custody – despite convictions that included a total of 473 homicide-related offenses, 375 kidnappings, 890 sexual assaults, and 10,731 assaults before their release,” he continued.

Goodlatte took additional aim at advocates and Democrats’ argument that the unaccompanied minors from Central America — who have been flooding across the border illegally by the tens of thousands and largely allowed to remain — are all helpless children.

“It is no coincidence that the spike in gang crime occurred during the same time that thousands of Central American minors were illegally entering at the southwest border. Sixty-four percent of validated gang members arrested in Frederick County in 2015 entered illegally through the southwest border as unaccompanied minors,” Goodlatte said, at the time foreshadowing the testimony of Sheriff Charles Jenkins of Frederick County, Maryland.

Goodlatte’s strong words preceded emotional testimony offered by two hearing witnesses whose children were killed by illegal immigrants.

“By releasing known criminal aliens and refusing to secure our border, the Administration has sent a clear message to the American people that their safety and security are far less important than ensuring that illegally present and criminal aliens will remain here,” Goodlatte added.

Family of Benghazi Victim Finally Receives Benefits

Glen Doherty was part of the quick reaction force consisting of eight U.S. military or former military that left Tripoli in the rush to help rescue the Stevens and his colleagues at the consulate. His task was the same as the task of the 21 CIA personnel at the CIA annex one mile from where Ambassador Chris Stevens’ and the others came under attack. More detail here.

Family of Benghazi victim to receive $400G after CIA expands benefit program

FNC: The family of a CIA contractor killed in the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya will receive $400,000 after the agency expanded survivor benefits for employees and contractors killed in the line of duty overseas in acts of terrorism.

Glen Doherty, a former Navy SEAL who was working for the CIA’s Global Response staff in Libya at the time of Benghazi, held a standard federal insurance policy that pays a survivor benefit only to spouses and dependents. Doherty, 42, was divorced and had no children, rendering his family ineligible for compensation under the 1941 Defense Base Act, which still requires all overseas contractors including CIA employees to carry disability and life insurance.

According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, the CIA informed lawyers for Doherty’s mother, Barbara, Wednesday that the agency’s policy change had been finalized.

Barbara Doherty told WFXT that she was relieved that the expanded benefit had approved. She also called on Congress to repeal the Defense Base Act.

“It gives me solace that the CIA has done the right thing,” Doherty said. “Now it’s up to Congress to see if they can step up to the plate.”

Legislation introduced last year by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. and Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., would expand the death benefit to include families of all defense employees killed in terror attacks since Sept. 11, 2001, even if they don’t have spouses or dependents.

“It is entirely disrespectful to make [the families] fight through a long bureaucratic process to get the benefits that that heroism has earned,” Lynch told WFXT.

The CIA policy change is retroactive to April 18, 1983, the date a suicide attacker crashed a truck into the front of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans, some of whom were CIA officers.

“It wasn’t about the money, at all,” Doherty told WFXT. “It was a fight for [all families], because they didn’t have a voice and we did …that’s what kept us going on, knowing that they would eventually be recognize.”

“I am glad the [CIA] made this decision so the Doherty family and others who have lost loved ones in service to and sacrifice for our country will finally receive the recognition and honor they deserve,” Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the chair of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said in a statement.

Doherty’s family filed a $1 million damages claim against the CIA and the State Department in September 2014. The Union-Tribune reported that the family will drop all claims against the federal government in the wake of the expanded death benefit.

**** Glen was part of a Global Response Team in Libya while prior assignments included participation in Special Activities Division of the CIA.

Part of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, the Special Activities Division is thought to include around 150 paramilitaries, pilots and other specialists. When deployed to the field, they typically operate in 6 man or fewer teams, with many a mission carried out by a solo SAD operative. CIA Special Operations Group Paramilitaries often work on joint operations alongside Delta, DevGru, Special Forces etc.

9/11: 28 Pages, Real Evidence?

The U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia is in fact complicated and it did not begin with by any measure by the Bush dynasty. As explained on this site recently, conflicts and relationships between the United States, Iran and Saudi Arabia have a long convoluted history. Lawsuits for financial reparations regarding terror attacks and or accidents go back a long way.

 The U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian passenger jet.

The United States has been helping equip and train Saudi armed forces since U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and Saudi King Abdulaziz Al Saud struck an oil-for-security alliance in 1945. (More from Reuters)

If anyone has read former U.S. Senator Graham’s (FL) book, Intelligence Matters published several years ago, the contents of the much debated 28 pages is not new. The deeper details of the Saudis in the country at the time before, during and after 9/11 may or may not have damning evidence of full participation in the attack, yet there are connections with regard to Saudi diplomats providing some assistance to 2 of the hijackers. There are some real questions for sure including if it was known at the time that the 2 hijackers were known to the Saudi embassy personnel to be in fact part of the plot or were they telling another story for the sake of financial aid. You must decide for yourself with what is known in open published source.

At question too is the FBI’s involvement from the beginning and later the effort to classify the 28 pages and why in coordination with the Bush Administration. For sure there is much more required to be included to form a summary with regard to the 28 pages, for that we may need to wait a lifetime as it appears Barack Obama is planning to keep these documents classified if Congress passes the legislation to declassify them.

One of the hijackers is in fact a detainee at Guantanamo Bay and may be designated as a ‘never release’.

Al-Sharbi is one of 80 remaining detainees at Guantanamo Bay. His public record includes his graduation from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, reported association with other al-Qaeda members and alleged attendance at training camps in Afghanistan.

He is also among the individuals identified in FBI agent Kenneth Williams’ July 2001 electronic communication, sometimes called the “Phoenix EC” or “Phoenix Memo.” With it, Williams attempted—unsuccessfully—to alert the rest of the bureau about suspicions that Middle Eastern extremists were attending flight schools with ill intent, and to recommend a nationwide investigation of the phenomenon.

While those aspects of al-Sharbi’s story have been widely discussed, the FBI’s reported discovery of his flight certificate inside a Saudi embassy envelope buried in Pakistan has not. More here.

Read the summary below for further details as known and permitted to be in open source. with regard to ‘document 17’.

EXCLUSIVE- A Buried Envelope & Buried Questions: Your First Look Inside Declassified Document 17

By Brian P. McGlinchey 

As President Obama prepares to visit Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, his administration is under increasing pressure to declassify 28 pages that, according to many who’ve read them, illustrate financial links between the Saudi government and the 9/11 hijackers.

Meanwhile, a far lesser-known document from the files of the 9/11 Commission—written by the same principal authors as the 28 pages and declassified last summer without publicity and without media analysis—indicates investigators proposed exploring to what extent “political, economic and other considerations” affected U.S. government investigations of links between Saudi Arabia and 9/11.

Drafted by Dana Lesemann and Michael Jacobson as a set of work plans for their specific parts of the 9/11 Commission investigation, the 47-page document also provides an overview of individuals of most interest to investigators pursuing a Saudi connection to the 2001 attack that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Included in that overview is a previously unpublicized declaration that, after the capture of alleged al-Qaeda operative Ghassan al-Sharbi in Pakistan, the FBI discovered a cache of documents he had buried nearby. Among them: al-Sharbi’s U.S. pilot certificate inside an envelope of the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C.

Declassified in July 2015 under the authority of the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP) pursuant to a Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) appeal, the document is the seventeenth of 29 released under ISCAP appeal 2012-48, which focuses on FBI files related to 9/11. One of two documents in the series identified as “Saudi Notes,” we’ll refer to it as “Document 17.”

Dated June 6, 2003, Document 17 was written by Lesemann and Jacobson in their capacity as staff investigators for the 9/11 Commission, and was addressed to 9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow, Deputy Executive Director Chris Kojm and General Counsel Dan Marcus.

Commission Investigators Posed Two Questions That Linger Today

Lesemann and Jacobson had previously worked together on the 2002 joint congressional 9/11 intelligence inquiry and authored the classified, 28-page chapter on foreign government financing of the attacks. Document 17 outlines how the two investigators proposed to extend their earlier research. The plans include many questions Lesemann and Jacobson felt the investigation should answer.

Two of those questions seem strikingly relevant today, as a declassification review of just 28 pages said to implicate Saudi Arabia in the 9/11 attacks has inexplicably taken three times as long as the entire joint inquiry that produced them, and while a growing number of current and former officials who are familiar with the pages emphatically assert there’s no national security risk in their release.

Lesemann and Jacobson, already veterans of investigating 9/11 with the congressional inquiry, asked:

Document 17 Two Questions

They are two questions Lesemann wouldn’t be permitted to answer: Zelikow fired her first. Her termination had an apparent Saudi aspect of its own: Impatient with Zelikow’s neglect of her repeated requests for access to the 28 pages, she circumvented him to gain access on her own. When Zelikow discovered it, he promptly dismissed her.

9/11 Executive Director Philip Zelikow
Philip Zelikow

Organizationally set apart from dozens of other questions as among the more important, overarching lines of inquiry for their particular avenue of the commission’s work, the significance of the questions’ presence in Document 17 is amplified by the absence of corresponding answers in the commission’s final report.

At some point—perhaps after Lesemann’s determined interest in Saudi links to 9/11 led to her dismissal—someone apparently determined a public study of those questions was beyond the scope of work.

Zelikow’s appointment over the commission was controversial, given his previous friendship with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and the fact he’d served on the Bush administration’s transition team. That history and, once appointed, his ongoing contacts with Bush political advisor Karl Rove, led some to question whether he was willing or able to achieve the high level of impartiality so essential to his role.

The Bush administration’s lack of cooperation with Saudi-related 9/11 inquiries is well-documented. According to Philip Shenon’s book, The Commission:

(Commission member and former Secretary of the Navy John) Lehman was struck by the determination of the Bush White House to try to hide any evidence of the relationship between the Saudis and al Qaeda. “They were refusing to declassify anything having to do with Saudi Arabia,” Lehman said. “Anything having to do with the Saudis, for some reason, it had this very special sensitivity.” He raised the Saudi issue repeatedly with Andy Card. “I used to go over to see Andy, and I met with Rumsfeld three or four times, mainly to say, ‘What are you guys doing? This stonewalling is so counterproductive.”

The Bush family has a multi-generational relationship with the Saudi royal family, with ties that are both deeply personal and deeply financial. Prince Bandar bin Sultan was the Saudi ambassador to the United States on 9/11, and is considered a personal friend of George W. Bush.

With many investigatory leads pointing toward the Saudi embassy in Washington, some feel Bandar merits thorough investigation—or that he may even be directly implicated in the 28 pages that Bush controversially redacted.

Saturday, appearing on Michael Smerconish’s CNN program to discuss a Saudi threat to divest itself of some $750 billion in U.S. Treasury securities if Congress passes a law clearing a path for 9/11 victims’ lawsuit against the kingdom, former Senator Bob Graham said, “I believe that there is material in the 28 pages and the volume of other documents that would indicate that there was a connection at the highest levels between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the 19 hijackers.”

A Redacted Question from Document 17
A Redacted Question from Document 17

Asked by 60 Minutes if the 28 pages name names, commission member Lehman replied, “Yes. The average intelligent watcher of 60 Minutes would recognize them instantly.”

(If you watched the impactful prime time 60 Minutes segment on the 28 pages that aired last week and don’t remember Lehman’s intriguing statement, it’s because 60 Minutes oddly relegated perhaps their most newsworthy quote of all to this web extra.) There are many more examples of the U.S. government’s thwarting of Saudi-related inquiries, both outside and inside the work of the 9/11 Commission.

A Buried Flight Certificate

The FBI’s 2002 discovery of a U.S. pilot certificate or “flight certificate” inside a Saudi embassy envelope was news to Graham, who co-chaired the joint congressional inquiry that produced the 28 pages. 

Al-Sharbi Excerpt Document 17

“That’s very interesting. That’s a very intriguing and close connection to the Saudi embassy,” said Graham, who has been championing the declassification of the 28 pages and a perhaps hundreds of thousands of pages of other documents since 2003.  

Since people often re-use envelopes and citizens of any country may have legitimate reasons for correspondence with the embassies of their government in foreign countries they live in, the Saudi embassy envelope isn’t by itself conclusive of anything. 28Pages.org couldn’t find any other history of the FBI’s find or of the government’s evaluation of its significance.

GitmoAl-Sharbi is one of 80 remaining detainees at Guantanamo Bay. His public record includes his graduation from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, reported association with other al-Qaeda members and alleged attendance at training camps in Afghanistan.

He is also among the individuals identified in FBI agent Kenneth Williams’ July 2001 electronic communication, sometimes called the “Phoenix EC” or “Phoenix Memo.” With it, Williams attempted—unsuccessfully—to alert the rest of the bureau about suspicions that Middle Eastern extremists were attending flight schools with ill intent, and to recommend a nationwide investigation of the phenomenon.

While those aspects of al-Sharbi’s story have been widely discussed, the FBI’s reported discovery of his flight certificate inside a Saudi embassy envelope buried in Pakistan has not.

Additional Excerpts from Document 17

The al-Sharbi paragraph excerpted above is in a section titled, “A Brief Overview of Possible Saudi Government Connections to the September 11th Attacks.” Comprising a list of individuals of interest to the investigators, it begins with names central to the well-reported San Diego cell, including future hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, purported Saudi government operative Omar al-Bayoumi, Saudi diplomat Fahad al-Thumairy and Osama Bassnan, a former employee at a Saudi mission in Washington, D.C. who received “considerable funding from Prince Bandar and Princess Haifa, supposedly for his wife’s medical treatments.”

Here, we directly excerpt many entries from the list, with an emphasis on those that are more suggestive of a link to the Saudi government. Much of the information is already well-known.

It’s important to note that any given association described in these documents may well be benign, that witness statements aren’t always accurate, and that a previous government assertion of a fact may have already proved or may yet be proved wrong.

Omar Al-Bayoumi: Al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national, provided September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar with considerable assistance after the hijackers arrived in San Diego in February 2000. He helped them locate an apartment, co-signed their lease, and ordered Mohdhar Abdullah (discussed below) to provide them with whatever assistance they needed in acclimating to the United States. The FBI now believes that in January 2000 al-Bayoumi met with Fahad al-Thumairy, a Saudi diplomat and cleric, at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles before going to the restaurant where he met the hijackers and engaged them in conversation. Whether or not al-Bayoumi ‘s meeting with the hijackers was accidental or arranged is still the subject of debate. During his conversation with the hijackers, Al-Bayoumi invited them to move to San Diego, which they did shortly thereafter. Al-Bayoumi has extensive ties to the Saudi Government and many in the local Muslim community in San Diego believed that he was a Saudi intelligence officer. The FBI believes it is possible that he was an agent of the Saudi Government and that he may have been reporting on the local community to Saudi Government officials. In addition, during its investigation, the FBI discovered that al-Bayoumi has ties to terrorist elements as well.

Osama Bassnan: Bassnan was a very close associate of al-Bayoumi’s, and was in frequent contact with him while the hijackers were in San Diego. Bassnan, a vocal supporter of Usama Bin Ladin, admitted to an FBI asset that he met al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar while the hijackers were in San Diego, but denied this in a later conversation. There is some circumstantial evidence that he may have had closer ties to the hijackers, but the FBI has been unable to corroborate this additional reporting. Bassnan received considerable funding from Prince Bandar and Princess Haifa, supposedly for his wife’s medical treatments. According to FBI documents, Bassnan is a former employee of the Saudi Government’s Educational Mission in Washington, D.C.

Fahad Al-Thumairy: Until recently al-Thumairy was an accredited Saudi diplomat and imam at the King Fahad Mosque in Culver City, California. The news media reported that the U.S. Government revoked al-Thumairy’s visa in May 2003 ; the diplomat subsequently returned to Saudi Arabia. The FBI now believes that Omar al-Bayoumi met with al-Thumairy at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles before al-Bayoumi went to the restaurant where he met the hijackers. According to witness reporting, al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were also taken to the King Fahad Mosque while they were in the United States.

Mohdhar Abdullah: Abdullah was tasked by Omar al-Bayoumi to provide al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar with whatever assistance they needed while in San Diego. Abdullah, who became one of the hijackers’ closest associates in San Diego, translated for them, helped them open bank accounts, contacted flight schools for the hijackers, and helped them otherwise acclimate to life in the United States.

Osama Nooh and Lafi al-Harbi: Al-Harbi and Nooh are Saudi naval officers who were posted to San Diego while hijackers al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi were living there. After the September 11th attacks, the FBI determined that al-Hazmi had telephonic contact with both Nooh and al-Harbi while al-Hazmi was in the United States.

Mohammed Quadir-Harunani: Quadir-Harunani has been the subject of an FBI counterterrorism investigation since 1999 and the FBI is currently investigating whether he had contact with the September 11th hijackers. In June 2000 a call was placed from Transcom International, a company owned by Quadir-Harunani, to a number subscribed to by Said Bahaji, one of the key members of the Hamburg cell. Quadir-Harunani is also a close associate of Usama bin Ladin’s half-brother, Abdullah Bin Ladin (discussed below), who was assigned to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C.-E87 2.

Abdullah Bin Ladin: Abdullah bin Ladin (ABL) is reportedly Usama bin Ladin’s half-brother. He is the President and Director of the World Arab Muslim Youth Association (WAMY) and the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Studies in America. Both organizations are local branches of nongovernmental organizations based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. According to the FBI, there is reason to believe that WAMY is “closely associated with the funding and financing of international terrorist activities and in the past has provided logistical support to individuals wishing to fight in the Afghan War.” ABL has been assigned to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C. as an administrative officer. He is a close associate of Mohammed Quadir Harunani’s and has provided funding for Transcom International.

Fahad Abdullah Saleh Bakala: According to an FBI document, Bakala was close friends with two of the September 11th hijackers. The document also notes that Bakala has worked as a pilot for the Saudi Royal Family, flying Usama Bin Ladin between Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia during UBL’s exile.

Hamad Alotaibi: Alotaibi was assigned to the Saudi Embassy Military Division in Washington, D.C. According to an eyewitness report, one of the September 11th hijackers may have visited Alotaibi at his residence; another FBI document notes that a second hijacker may have also visited this address.

Hamid Al-Rashid: Al-Rashid is an employee of the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority and was apparently responsible for approving the salary of Omar al-Bayoumi. Hamid al-Rashid is also the father of Saud al-Rashid, whose photo was found in a raid of an al-Qa’ida safehouse in Karachi and who has admitted to being in Afghanistan between May 2000 and May 2001.

Ghassan al-Sharbi: Al-Sharbi is a Saudi student who was taking flight lessons in the Phoenix area before the September 11 attacks and is mentioned in the “Phoenix EC.” The U.S. government captured al-Sharbi in the same location where Abu Zubaida was discovered in early 2002. After Al-Sharbi was captured, the FBI discovered that he had buried a cache of documents nearby, including an envelope from the Saudi embassy in Washington that contained al-Sharbi’s flight certificate.

Saleh Al-Hussayen: According to FBI documents, Saleh Al-Hussayen is a Saudi Interior Ministry employee/official and may also be a prominent Saudi cleric. According to one news article, Saleh Al-Hussayen is the Chief Administrator of the Holy Mosques in Mecca and Medina. An FBI affidavit notes that Saleh Al-Hussayen stayed in the same hotel as three of the hijackers on September 10, 2001. He told the FBI that he did not know the hijackers . The FBI agents interviewing him, however, believed he was being deceptive. The interview was terminated when al-Hussayen either passed out or feigned a seizure and was taken to the hospital; he then departed the country before the FBI could reinterview him. Saleh Al-Hussayen is ‘also the uncle of Sami Al -Hussayen (discussed below).

Mohammed Fakihi: Fakihi is a Saudi diplomat. Until recently he was assigned to the Islamic Affairs Section of the Saudi Embassy in Berlin, Germany. Soon after the September 11th attacks, German authorities searched SECRET 3 SECRET 10 the apartment of Munir Motassadeq, an associate of the hijackers in Hamburg , and found Fakihi’s business card. According to press reports , the Saudis did not respond to German requests for information on Fakihi. More recently, German authorities discovered that Fakihi had contacts with other terrorists; Fakihi was subsequently recalled to Saudi Arabia.

Salah Bedaiwi: Bedaiwi is a Saudi Naval officer who was posted to a U .S. Navy base in Pensacola, Florida. He visited the Middle Eastern Market in Miami, a location frequented by several of the hijackers, and was in contact with at least one of the hijackers’ possible associates. The FBI has been investigating these connections, as well as his ties to other terrorist elements.

Mohammed Al-Qudhaeein and Hamdan Al-Shalawi: Al-Qudhaeein and Al-Shalawi were both Saudi students living in the Phoenix area. Qudhaeein was receiving funding from the Saudi Government during his time in Phoenix. Qudhaeein and Al-Shalawi were involved in a 1999 incident aboard an America West flight that the FBI’s Phoenix Office now believes may have been a “dry run” for the September 11th attacks. Al-Qudhaeein and Al-Shalawi were traveling to Washington, D.C. to attend a party at the Saudi Embassy; the Saudi Embassy paid for their airfare. According to FBI documents, during the flight they engaged in suspicious behavior, including several attempts to gain access to the cockpit. The plane made an emergency landing in Ohio, but no charges were filed against either individual. The FBI subsequently received information in November 2000 that Al-Shalawi had been trained at the terrorist camps in Afghanistan to conduct Khobar Towertype attacks and the FBI has also developed information tying Al-Qudhaeein to terrorist elements as well.

Ali Hafiz Al-Marri and Maha Al-Marri: Ali Al-Marri was indicted for lying to the FBI about his contact with Mustafa Al-Hasawi, one of the September 11th financiers. Ali Al-Marri, who arrived in the United States shortly before the September 11th attacks, attempted to call Al-Hasawi a number of times from the United States. The FBI has recently received reporting that he may also have been an al:.Qa’ida “sleeper agent.” According to FBI documents, Ali Al-Marri has connections to the Saudi Royal Family. The Saudi Government provided financial support to his wife, Maha Al-Marri, after Ali Al-Marri was detained and assisted her in departing the United States before the FBI could interview her.

 

 

On Iran, Obama Unwound Carter’s Action

It all started with the Iranian hostages, then the Beirut bombings. President Jimmy Carter gave the order to freeze all accessible Iranian assets including military equipment. And so it was done, but Madeline Albright began to pull the threat on behalf of Iran, and Barack Obama continued to do the same in 2009.

There are countless moving parts here, so it is for sure convoluted so perhaps the bullet points here will help. A calculator may be good too.

  • The Supreme Court decided today in a 6-2 ruling on behalf of the victims to free up close to $2 billion in frozen Iranian assets—held in a New York bank for Iran’s central bank, Bank Markazi—to compensate more than 1,000 victims and family members harmed in terrorism incidents traceable to Iran, including the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marines barracks in Lebanon.   
  • In 2000, in her speech on Friday, March 17, the U.S. Secretary of State, Mrs. Albright, made reference to the Iranian assets that the United States froze in the aftermath of the hostage crisis in 1979. It always had been that any normalization of relations between these two countries had to consider the unfreezing of the Iranian assets. What was never clear was the size and nature of the assets. In her speech, Mrs. Albright indicated that much of the frozen assets were turned over to Iran after 1981. Yet, she also intimated that there is more that was not turned over. The size of the remaining frozen assets has been one mystery. Their nature and location, too, are not clear. At the time of the freeze, reports indicated that the assets consisted of goods purchased by Iran and not delivered by the suppliers, including military supplies, cash and securities on deposit or in trust with various U.S. banks and financial institutions here and their branches and subsidiaries abroad, stock and bonds of United States issuers, real estate, right to interest, dividend, and distribution, contract rights, and other proprietary interests. Read the rest of the shocking summary here.
  • To dovetail the second bullet point above, today, Daily Beast published an item that explains why the legislation introduced to punish Saudi Arabia for any involvement in the 9/11 attacks on the United States should be avoided as noted by some key officials at the Pentagon. Why you ask, the historical house of the United States is not clean either, which too is further explained in the link of the second bullet item. This is for sure still up for debate, however, there are major indications that during Barack Obama’s trip to Saudi Arabia, he is likely reassuring the KSA he will veto any punishing legislation. 
  • We can fully know at all exactly where or how much Iranian money resides in banks around the world and how is brokering business on behalf of Iran, investing for the rogue country, much less skirting sanctions for them as well. You see even China had/has ownership of $22 billion of Iranian funds mostly due to sanctions and to pay for oil. 
  • In 2009, enter Barack Obama and $2 billion for Iran just to come to the table. WSJ:  ” More than $2 billion allegedly held on behalf of Iran in Citigroup Inc. C 2.43 % accounts were secretly ordered frozen last year by a federal court in Manhattan, in what appears to be the biggest seizure of Iranian assets abroad since the 1979 Islamic revolution.  The legal order, executed 18 months ago by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, is under seal and hasn’t been made public. The court acted in part because of information provided by the U.S. Treasury Department.President Barack Obama has pledged to enact new economic sanctions on Iran at year-end if Tehran doesn’t respond to international calls for negotiations over its nuclear-fuel program. The frozen $2 billion stands at the center of an intensifying legal struggle between Luxembourg’s Clearstream Banking S.A., the holder of the Citibank account, and the families of hundreds of U.S. Marines killed or injured in a 1983 terrorist attack on a Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. Clearstream is primarily a clearing house for financial trades and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Germany’s Deutsche Börse AG. Luxembourg’s bank secrecy laws have helped it grow into a major European financial center.” More here from the WSJ.  
  • So what about this Clearstream Banking operation you say? Well they were a nefarious operation as well. In 2014, The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today announced a $152 million agreement with Clearstream Banking, S.A. (Clearstream), of Luxembourg, to settle its potential civil liability for apparent violations surrounding Clearstream’s use of its omnibus account with a U.S. financial institution as a conduit to hold securities on behalf of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI). More here from Treasury.   
  • In January 2016, The U.S. State Department announced the government had agreed to pay Iran $1.7 billion to settle a case related to the sale of military equipment prior to the Iranian revolution, according to a statement issued on Sunday.
    Iran had set up a $400 million trust fund for such purchases, which was frozen along with diplomatic relations in 1979. In settling the claim, which had been tied up at the Hague Tribunal since 1981, the U.S. is returning the money in the fund along with “a roughly $1.3 billion compromise on the interest,” the statement said.
  • Wait, there is the other $100 billion: That’s roughly how much the U.S. Treasury Department says Iran stands to recover once sanctions are lifted under the new nuclear deal.

We cant know if there is more, yet no wonder Iran is dancing in the streets and maintains threatening behavior where Obama continues to tell the region, get along with Iran….they are legitimate. Oh….Obama is working on a personal meeting with Rouhani too.

Intense U.S.-Iran negotiations appear to be underway at this time, on various levels. They have included meetings this week in New York between Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif and U.S. Secretary of State Kerry, and an April 14 Washington meeting between Central Bank of Iran governor Valiollah Seif and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew.[1] According to an April 19 report on the Iranian website Sahamnews.org, which is affiliated with Iran’s Green Movement, President Obama asked to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rohani in two secret letters sent in late March to both Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Rohani. According to the report, Obama wrote in the letters that Iran has a limited-time opportunity to cooperate with the U.S. in order to resolve the problems in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, and promised that if Iran agreed to a meeting between him and Rohani, he would be willing to participate in any conference to this end. The Sahamnews report further stressed that Supreme Leader Khamenei discussed the request with President Rohani, that Rohani said that Iran should accept the request and meet with Obama, and that such a meeting could lead to an end to the crises in the region while increasing Iran’s influence in their resolution. Rohani promised Khamenei that any move would be coordinated with him and reported to him. According to the report, Khamenei agreed with Rohani. The Sahamnews report also emphasized that Khamenei’s recent aggressively anti-U.S. speeches were aimed at maintaining an anti-U.S. atmosphere among the Iranian public, whereas in private meetings he expresses a different position. Courtesy and more from MEMRI here.